I think it’s inevitable that autonomous trucking will capture a share of the marketplace. However, I would venture to guess that it will be a specialized market in that there are many types of freight that absolutely require a human operator. A good example would be chemical or gas delivery. I seriously doubt automatons would, anytime in the foreseeable future, be turning valves or monitoring offloads of serious chemicals.
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I can’t envision a totally driverless truck. The whole infrastructure would have to change. We are millions of dollars and many years from that happening on a large scale. There’s always maintenance that needs to be at all hours of the day and night. A tire will always need changing. Perhaps mechanics may become more fluent in the electric side of it, the sensors and such.
The future of trucking will definitely be autonomous. What I foresee is autonomous trucks moving the freight from staging hub to staging hub and local drivers delivering the load locally. The staging hubs could be a combination of a full load and cross dock type facility – Look to Amazon and there is your future.
